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Elon Musk banters and answers tough questions on Reddit [SEE HERE]

Elon Musk
did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit yesterday, and while he didn’t provide
every missing detail on SpaceX’s ambitious BFR program, he was (as always)
engaging and informative in a more general way. Here are the highlights of the
Q&A.

SpaceX plans
to put satellites around Mars before any manned mission

Musk’s talk
at IAC a few weeks ago raised a lot of eyebrows — the rumored BFR, or “Big
Fucking Rocket,” was documented at least in concept, as was a plan for
colonizing Mars. But while the rosy hued predictions of a massive city
resupplied by countless rockets was compelling, there’s a lot that has to
happen first.

One step is
putting SpaceX orbiters around Mars to collect the kind of specific data the
company needs in order to do repeated landings. Asked if he has plans to launch
multiple such satellites, Musk merely replied “yes,” confirming speculation but
obviously not much more.

Considering
the short timeline SpaceX is operating on in terms of crewed Mars missions, these
satellites would likely have to be launched in the next couple years, well
before a full-scale test of the BFR platform.

We need an
interplanetary internet

Several
users asked about problem of information exchange: often at more than 20
light-minutes away, Mars wouldn’t be easy to browse the web from.

After
calling a user a nerd for fantasizing about the possibility of a space
internet, Musk agreed that a new protocol or system would be necessary.
Probably, he speculated, users on Mars would request websites or media and it
would have to be relayed over a sort of interplanetary backbone to caching
systems on or around the red planet.

At nearer
distances it wouldn’t be quite such a problem. “3 light-minutes at closest
distance,” Musk wrote. “So you could Snapchat, I suppose. If that’s a thing in
the future.”

SpaceX
“chickened out” on Raptor thrust

The Raptor
engines that are being tested for interplanetary trips were once slated to have
about 300 tons of thrust force, but reduced later to 170. One user asked why
this was the case. Musk first answered simply that “we chickened out.”

In a more
detailed follow-up answer, however, he explained that first, they were able to
do so because the payload mass had decreased. But large, complex engines
capable of major throttling put too many eggs in one basket, he implied;
smaller engines capable of many stages of throttling are better for fiddly
operations like vertical landings. They’ll be mostly forged, not 3D printed.

The company
is focusing on reliability above all, he wrote in answer to a related question:

The flight
engine design [compared with existing test versions] is much lighter and
tighter, and is extremely focused on reliability. The objective is to meet or
exceed passenger airline levels of safety. If our engine is even close to a jet
engine in reliability, has a flak shield to protect against a rapid unscheduled
disassembly and we have more engines than the typical two of most airliners,
then exceeding airline safety should be possible.

Test flights
for on-planet travel are planned

Some found
Musk’s idea of using rockets to go from point to point on Earth rather
unrealistic, but hey, why not at least try it? Musk said that full scale tests
will begin in the next couple years, first with rockets staying low (a couple
hundred kilometers) and eventually working their way up to orbital flights.

He noted
that multiple rocket stages will be continue to be necessary, at least on this
planet: “Earth is the wrong planet for single stage to orbit. No problemo on
Mars.”

There’s a
“kinda weird” space tanker coming

In the IAC
presentation, Musk showed two BFRs refueling by putting their engine ends
together and having fuel flow between them.

At first,
Musk explained, the BFR tankers will just be the same thing as passenger and
cargo versions of the craft, but without a payload in the front. But the company
is working on dedicated tanker craft with “an extremely high full to empty mass
ratio” — by which he means they’ll be mostly empty space.

The federal
government through the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has apologised
to Air Peace Airlines and its passengers after a herd of cattle strayed onto
the runway of Akure Airport in Ondo state.

Nigerian
football star Victor Moses scored on his 209th Premier League appearance as
Chelsea put behind them their recent struggles by thrashing West Bromwich
Albion 3-0 at the Stamford Bridge on Monday.

Do you use Startimes decoder and you are asking how to recharge your Startimes decoder using your phone with you Gtbank account, then you are in the right place. I will be showing you, or rather teaching you how you can recharge your Startimes decoder or rather pay for your Startimes subscription using your GTbank account with your mobile phone in 2017, be it Nokia torch light or any non-smartphone.

The Special
Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie has
responded to the claims that the Tsaigumi commissioned in Kaduna during the
week, was first launched by ex-president Goodluck Jonathan in 2013.